We Are the 99%; Protests Against Wall Street Spread Across US

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We are the 99%

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Protests Against Wall Street Spread Across US

By Chris Hawley Associated Press via Common Dreams October 4,
2011

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/10/04-6

NEW YORK - Protests against Wall Street entered their 18th
day Tuesday as demonstrators across the country show their
anger over the wobbly economy and what they see as corporate
greed by marching on Federal Reserve banks and camping out in
parks from Los Angeles to Portland, Maine.

In Manhattan on Monday, hundreds of protesters dressed as
corporate zombies in white face paint lurched past the New
York Stock Exchange clutching fistfuls of fake money. In
Chicago, demonstrators pounded drums in the city's financial
district. Others pitched tents or waved protest signs at
passing cars in Boston, St. Louis, Kansas City, Mo., and Los
Angeles.

A slice of America's discontented, from college students
worried about their job prospects to middle-age workers who
have been recently laid off, were galvanized after the
arrests of 700 protesters on the Brooklyn Bridge over the
weekend.

 Some protesters likened themselves to the tea party movement
 — but with a liberal bent — or to the Arab Spring
 demonstrators who brought down their rulers in the Middle
 East.

 "We feel the power in Washington has actually been
 compromised by Wall Street," said Jason Counts, a computer
 systems analyst and one of about three dozen protesters in
 St. Louis. "We want a voice, and our voice has slowly been
 degraded over time."

 The Occupy Wall Street protests started on Sept. 17 with a
 few dozen demonstrators who tried to pitch tents in front of
 the New York Stock Exchange. Since then, hundreds have set
 up camp in a park nearby and have become increasingly
 organized, lining up medical aid and legal help and printing
 their own newspaper, the Occupied Wall Street Journal.

 About 100 demonstrators were arrested on Sept. 24 and some
 were pepper-sprayed. On Saturday police arrested 700 on
 charges of disorderly conduct and blocking a public street
 as they tried to march over the Brooklyn Bridge. Police said
 they took five more protesters into custody on Monday,
 though it was unclear whether they had been charged with any
 crime.

 "At this point, we don't anticipate wider unrest," said Tim
 Flannelly, an FBI spokesman in New York, "but should it
 occur the city, including the NYPD and the FBI, will deploy
 any and all resources necessary to control any
 developments."

 Flannelly said he does not expect the New York protests to
 develop into the often-violent demonstrations that have
 rocked cities in the United Kingdom since the summer. But he
 said the FBI is "monitoring the situation and will respond
 accordingly."

 Wiljago Cook, of Oakland, Calif., who joined the New York
 protest on the first day, said she was shocked by the
 arrests.

 "Exposing police brutality wasn't even really on my agenda,
 but my eyes have been opened," she said. She vowed to stay
 in New York "as long as it seems useful."

 City bus drivers sued the New York Police Department on
 Monday for commandeering their buses and making them drive
 to the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday to pick up detained
 protesters.

 "We're down with these protesters. We support the notion
 that rich folk are not paying their fair share," said
 Transport Workers Union President John Samuelsen. "Our bus
 operators are not going to be pressed into service to arrest
 protesters anywhere."

 The city's Law Department said the NYPD's actions were
 proper.

 On Monday, the zombies stayed on the sidewalks as they wound
 through Manhattan's financial district chanting, "How to fix
 the deficit: End the war, tax the rich!" They lurched along
 with their arms in front of them. Some yelled, "I smell
 money!"

 Reaction was mixed from passers-by.

 Roland Klingman, who works in the financial industry and was
 wearing a suit as he walked through a raucous crowd of
 protesters, said he could sympathize with the anti-Wall
 Street message.

 "I don't think it's directed personally at everyone who
 works down here," Klingman said. "If they believe everyone
 down here contributes to policy decisions, it's a serious
 misunderstanding."

 Another man in a suit yelled at the protesters, "Go back to
 work!" He declined to be interviewed.

 Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a billionaire who made his fortune
 as a corporate executive, has said the demonstrators are
 making a mistake by targeting Wall Street.

 "The protesters are protesting against people who make $40-
 or $50,000 a year and are struggling to make ends meet.
 That's the bottom line. Those are the people who work on
 Wall Street or in the finance sector," Bloomberg said in a
 radio interview Friday.

 Some protesters planned to travel to other cities to
 organize similar events.

 John Hildebrand, a protester in New York from Norman, Okla.,
 hoped to mount a protest there after returning home Tuesday.
 Julie Levine, a protester in Los Angeles, planned to go to
 Washington on Thursday.

 Websites and Facebook pages with names like Occupy Boston
 and Occupy Philadelphia have also sprung up to plan the
 demonstrations.

 Hundreds of demonstrators marched from a tent city on a
 grassy plot in downtown Boston to the Statehouse to call for
 an end of corporate influence of government.

 "Our beautiful system of American checks and balances has
 been thoroughly trashed by the influence of banks and big
 finance that have made it impossible for the people to
 speak," said protester Marisa Engerstrom, of Somerville,
 Mass., a Harvard doctoral student.

 The Boston demonstrators decorated their tents with hand-
 written signs reading, "Fight the rich, not their wars" and
 "Human need, not corporate greed."

 Some stood on the sidewalk holding up signs, engaging in
 debate with passers-by and waving at honking cars. One man
 yelled "Go home!" from his truck. Another man made an
 obscene gesture.

 Patrick Putnam, a 27-year-old chef from Framingham, Mass.,
 said he's standing up for the 99 percent of Americans who
 have no say in what happens in government.

 "We don't have voices, we don't have lobbyists, so we've
 been pretty much neglected by Washington," he said.

 In Chicago, protesters beat drums on the corner near the
 Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. In Los Angeles,
 demonstrators hoping to get TV coverage gathered in front of
 the courthouse where Michael Jackson's doctor is on trial on
 manslaughter charges.

 Protesters in St. Louis stood on a street corner a few
 blocks from the shimmering Gateway Arch, carrying signs that
 read, "How Did The Cat Get So Fat?,""You're a Pawn in Their
 Game" and "We Want The Sacks Of Gold Goldman Sachs Stole
 From Us."

 "Money talks, and it seems like money has all the power,"
 said Apollonia Childs. "I don't want to see any homeless
 people on the streets, and I don't want to see a veteran or
 elderly people struggle. We all should have our fair share.
 We all vote, pay taxes. Tax the rich."

 Verena Dobnik, Karen Matthews, Cristian Salazar and Jennifer
 Peltz in New York; Jim Suhr in St. Louis; David Sharp in
 Portland, Maine; Mark Pratt in Boston; Patrick Walters in
 Philadelphia; Pete Yost in Washington; Bill Draper in Kansas
 City, Mo.; Carla K. Johnson in Chicago, and Christina Hoag
 and Robert Jablon in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

© 2011 Associated Press

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