The “Occupy Wall Street” American Autumn Movement
The Occupy Wall Street movement - The 99 percent movement - The Occupy Together movement

by Sheila Musaji

I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs  Thomas Jefferson, (Attributed) 3rd president of US (1743 - 1826)

”... This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence – economic, political, even spiritual – is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.  In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.  We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.  ...” Dwight D. Eisenhower final address to the nation 1961

THE MOVEMENT AND THE MEDIA

Initially, the Movement was mostly ignored by major media, and when it was mentioned, it was with disdain, or even attempts to downplay the numbers, or an attempt at dirty tricks to undermine the movement.  However, this didn’t result in the movement becoming weakened because of the protestors reliance on social networking tools and alternative media.  Just as we had the “Arab Spring” which was successful because ordinary people got the word out minute by minute, the same resources were used effectively by the Occupy Wall Street (OWP) protestors..

With the “Occupy Wall Street Protest” we have the beginning of an “American Autumn” which has not yet achieved the same momentum, but it is happening.  The protests began on September 17th in NYC after a call by Adbusters and continue to grow as a series of grassroots protests against corporate greed.  The protest began with only about 150 young people with no political experience.

The major media is finally beginning to report on the movement, although they still are having trouble taking it seriously.  Jon Stewart as usual does an excellent job of showing up the media bias and double-standards.  It is ironic that a Fox News crew was maced and beaten along with the protestors during a march. 

On 10/1 the first issue of a newspaper “Occupied Wall Street Journal” was produced and distributed by the protestors in NYC.

Keith Boykin has an excellent overview Everything The Media Told You About Occupy Wall Street Is Wrong which lists and counters the top ten media myths about OWS.  And, Media Matters has published A Guide To The Smear Campaign Against Occupy Wall Street

Of course, once there was any Muslim involvement in OWS, the Islamophobes claimed that the Muslim Brotherhood was behind OWS.  Keith Olbermann tore this argument apart. 

Another smear often used by the media is that the protestors are damaging the parks and not being clean.  Local groups are attempting to make sure that this is not a concern.  For example, The Occupy DC group—which has been in McPherson Square since Oct. 1—has decided it will take responsibility for repairing the park. Protesters have begun replanting grass in some of McPherson’s bare areas and are soliciting estimates for professionals to resod any areas they can’t fix themselves.  “I think it’s a little bit silly to focus on the cost of trampling a bit of grass when we’re out here trying to keep something much bigger, which includes destruction of the environment worldwide,” Patterson said. “I would say that a patch of grass in McPherson Square is not nearly as important as the greater good that we are trying to achieve.”

THE OWS MOVEMENT AND LAW ENFORCEMENT

“Those who profess to favor freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are people who want crops without ploughing the ground; they want rain without thunder and lightning; they want the ocean without the roar of its many waters. The struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, or it may be both. But it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”   ― Frederick Douglass

This entire section has now been moved to a separate article The OWS movement and law enforcement and includes lists of arrests, and the involvement of legal groups and now former Marines to observe and protect the protestors.

THE MOMENTUM IS GROWING

The protests have spread to all 50 States, and the District of Columbia.  See the OCCUPY TOGETHER list of the current cities.  Here is a list that shows that there is at least one Occupy Together site in every state:

Anchorage AK,
Birmingham AL, Auburn AL
Little Rock AR
Tucson AZ,
San Francisco CA,  Los Angeles CA, Santa Barbara CA,  Santa Cruz CA,  San Diego CA,
Colorado Springs CO, Denver CO,
Hartford CT,  New Haven CT,
Newark DE
Orlando FL,
Atlanta GA,
Kona & Hilo HI,
Iowa City & Des Moines, IA,
Pocatello ID,
Chicago IL,
Indianapolis IN,
Wichita KS,
Louisville KY,
New Orleans LA, 
Baltimore MD, 
Boston MA,  Worcester MA
Portland ME,
Lansing MI,  Grand Rapids MI,
Minneapolis MN, 
Jackson MI
Saint Louis MO,  Kansas City MO, Springfield MO,
Missoula MT,
Omaha NE
Bismarck ND
Las Vegas NV,
Concord NH,
Jersey City NJ
Albuquerque NM,
New York City (original site), Buffalo NY
Asheville NC, Charlotte, Raleigh, Winston-Salem & Greensboro NC
Cincinnati OH,  Youngstown OH, 
Norman OK, Tulsa OK,
Portland OR, Eugene, OR,
Philadelphia PA, Harrisburg PA,
Providence RI,
Greenville & Spartanburg SC
Vermillion SD
Knoxville TN, Nashville TN
Dallas, Austin, Houston, and San Antonio TX,
Salt Lake City UT,
Burlington VT
Richmond VA,
Spokane WA, Seattle WA,
Charleston WV,
Madison WI, Eau Claire WI
Casper WY
and the District of Columbia

Events are being planned nationwide with more popping up all the time.  As of 9/29 there are Occupy Protests underway or planned in more than 100 cities, and the list is growing by the day and by the hour.  As of 10/6 Occupy Together “meetups” could be found in 575 cities that stretched across the world to places as diverse as Athens, Greece, and Wellington, New Zealand.  On 10/7 Occupy Together listed 719 cities with Occupy meetings, and includes an interactive map.  As of 10/8 estimates are that the protests have spread to over 1,000 cities across the U.S.  As of 10/9 the list has grown to 1,188 cities.  As of 10/11 the list includes 1,306 cities.  As of 11/3 the list has grown to 2,286 cities.

The crowds are also growing.  More than 3,000 marched on Bank of America in Occupy Boston on 9/30.  On 10/5 crowd estimates for a few cities were quite large, e.g. New York City 20,000, Portland OR 10,000, Philadelphia PA 1,000.

Not only is the momentum growing in the U.S., but the Saturday 10/15 Global Day of Action in Solidarity With Occupy Wall Street saw events across the globe.  Protests were planned for 91 cities in 81 countries.  In Lisbon, Portugal about 40,000, in Frankfurt, Germanyu 6,000, in Madrid, Spain 10,000 protestors marched.  The protests were peaceful everywhere but Rome where there was violence.

More organizations are supporting the movement daily

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka has spoken positively about the protests.  Over 700 hundred Continental and United airline pilots, joined by additional pilots from other Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) carriers joined the protestors on 9/27.  The NYC Transit Union has joined the Occupy Wall Street protest.  The executive board of the New York Transit Workers Union/Transport Workers Local 100 voted unanimously to support Occupy Wall Street. Local 100 has 38,000 active members and covers 26,000 retirees, according to its website. The United Federation of Teachers has expressed solidarity.  Terry O’Sullivan, General President of the Laborers International Union LIUNA has issued a statement in support of Occupy Wall Street

Daniel Massey of Crain’s Business reports that now that organized labor and experienced activists are getting involved, the protests may grow even more

A loose coalition of labor and community groups said Thursday that they would join the protest next week. They are organizing a solidarity march scheduled for Wednesday that is expected to start at City Hall and finish a few blocks south at Zuccotti Park.

...  The protestors have transformed the park into a village of sorts, complete with a community kitchen, a library, a concert stage, an arts and crafts center and a media hub. All of that has enabled them not just to sustain the action but to build momentum. And as celebrities like Michael Moore, Susan Sarandon, Russell Simmons and Cornel West have joined in, the city’s traditional activists have been forced to jump into the fray.  “It’s become too big to ignore,” said one political consultant.
Some of the biggest players in organized labor are actively involved in planning for Wednesday’s demonstration, either directly or through coalitions that they are a part of. The United Federation of Teachers, 32BJ SEIU, 1199 SEIU, Workers United and Transport Workers Union Local 100 are all expected to participate. The Working Families Party is helping to organize the protest and MoveOn.org is expected to mobilize its extensive online regional networks to drum up support for the effort.

“We’re getting involved because the crisis was caused by the excesses of Wall Street and the consequences have fallen hardest on workers,” a spokesman for TWU Local 100 said.

Thom Hartmann reports that

You need to know this.  The Occupy Wall Street movement is picking up some crucial support.  Demonstrators have been camped out for 13 straight days now in lower Manhattan – but reinforcements are on the way.  Top unions and progressive organizations like the SEIU, the United Federation of Teachers, the Transport Workers Union, as well as MoveOn.org, and a slew of others have pledged to join the demonstrators next week.  With their support – the number of people on the streets could swell by the thousands. Each day this goes on – it’s looking more and more like something really is happening.  Corporate greed, crony capitalism, and the “for the rich, by the rich” economy may have finally reached a tipping point in America.

Chris Hedges wrote the following heartfelt appeal to all Americans to join in this movement

There are no excuses left. Either you join the revolt taking place on Wall Street and in the financial districts of other cities across the country or you stand on the wrong side of history. Either you obstruct, in the only form left to us, which is civil disobedience, the plundering by the criminal class on Wall Street and accelerated destruction of the ecosystem that sustains the human species, or become the passive enabler of a monstrous evil. Either you taste, feel and smell the intoxication of freedom and revolt or sink into the miasma of despair and apathy. Either you are a rebel or a slave.

To be declared innocent in a country where the rule of law means nothing, where we have undergone a corporate coup, where the poor and working men and women are reduced to joblessness and hunger, where war, financial speculation and internal surveillance are the only real business of the state, where even habeas corpus no longer exists, where you, as a citizen, are nothing more than a commodity to corporate systems of power, one to be used and discarded, is to be complicit in this radical evil. To stand on the sidelines and say “I am innocent” is to bear the mark of Cain; it is to do nothing to reach out and help the weak, the oppressed and the suffering, to save the planet. To be innocent in times like these is to be a criminal. Ask Tim DeChristopher.

Choose. But choose fast. The state and corporate forces are determined to crush this. They are not going to wait for you. They are terrified this will spread. They have their long phalanxes of police on motorcycles, their rows of white paddy wagons, their foot soldiers hunting for you on the streets with pepper spray and orange plastic nets. They have their metal barricades set up on every single street leading into the New York financial district, where the mandarins in Brooks Brothers suits use your money, money they stole from you, to gamble and speculate and gorge themselves while one in four children outside those barricades depend on food stamps to eat. Speculation in the 17th century was a crime. Speculators were hanged. Today they run the state and the financial markets. They disseminate the lies that pollute our airwaves. They know, even better than you, how pervasive the corruption and theft have become, how gamed the system is against you, how corporations have cemented into place a thin oligarchic class and an obsequious cadre of politicians, judges and journalists who live in their little gated Versailles while 6 million Americans are thrown out of their homes, a number soon to rise to 10 million, where a million people a year go bankrupt because they cannot pay their medical bills and 45,000 die from lack of proper care, where real joblessness is spiraling to over 20 percent, where the citizens, including students, spend lives toiling in debt peonage, working dead-end jobs, when they have jobs, a world devoid of hope, a world of masters and serfs.

The only word these corporations know is more. They are disemboweling every last social service program funded by the taxpayers, from education to Social Security, because they want that money themselves. Let the sick die. Let the poor go hungry. Let families be tossed in the street. Let the unemployed rot. Let children in the inner city or rural wastelands learn nothing and live in misery and fear. Let the students finish school with no jobs and no prospects of jobs. Let the prison system, the largest in the industrial world, expand to swallow up all potential dissenters. Let torture continue. Let teachers, police, firefighters, postal employees and social workers join the ranks of the unemployed. Let the roads, bridges, dams, levees, power grids, rail lines, subways, bus services, schools and libraries crumble or close. Let the rising temperatures of the planet, the freak weather patterns, the hurricanes, the droughts, the flooding, the tornadoes, the melting polar ice caps, the poisoned water systems, the polluted air increase until the species dies.

Who the hell cares? If the stocks of ExxonMobil or the coal industry or Goldman Sachs are high, life is good. Profit. Profit. Profit. That is what they chant behind those metal barricades. They have their fangs deep into your necks. If you do not shake them off very, very soon they will kill you. And they will kill the ecosystem, dooming your children and your children’s children. They are too stupid and too blind to see that they will perish with the rest of us. So either you rise up and supplant them, either you dismantle the corporate state, for a world of sanity, a world where we no longer kneel before the absurd idea that the demands of financial markets should govern human behavior, or we are frog-marched toward self-annihilation.

Those on the streets around Wall Street are the physical embodiment of hope. They know that hope has a cost, that it is not easy or comfortable, that it requires self-sacrifice and discomfort and finally faith. They sleep on concrete every night. Their clothes are soiled. They have eaten more bagels and peanut butter than they ever thought possible. They have tasted fear, been beaten, gone to jail, been blinded by pepper spray, cried, hugged each other, laughed, sung, talked too long in general assemblies, seen their chants drift upward to the office towers above them, wondered if it is worth it, if anyone cares, if they will win. But as long as they remain steadfast they point the way out of the corporate labyrinth. This is what it means to be alive. They are the best among us.

On 10/5 the movement had the largest march yet in NYC.  Thousands turned out including members of teachers and nurses unions, and many others.  National Nurses United, the largest union and professional association of nurses in the US, today re-affirmed that it stands with the ongoing Occupy Wall Street protests and rallies and announced that NNU members will be attending support actions today in New York, Boston, San Francisco and other cities.

On 10/7, Massachusetts’ largest health care union, 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, announced it will give support and resources to Occupy Boston.  The union’s members “stand in solidarity with the Occupy Boston protesters and their demand that Wall Street be held accountable for the current economic crisis,” 1199SEIU Executive Vice President Veronica Turner said in a press release.  “It is time for large corporations and the super-rich to pay their fair share so this country can invest in our communities, create jobs and get back to work,”

On 10/7 Teams of ]b]New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) legal observers, staff and volunteers moved into the Occupy Wall Street event Friday to defend the protesters right to speak their minds from heavy-handed police according to the ACLU at noon Friday and Tweets of releived protesters. NYCLU is also offering trainings to the protesters and recording police misconduct.  “The NYCLU is here to ensure that the NYPD respect and strengthen the protest rights of all New Yorkers,” the ACLU stated in a written statement that it posted on its website shortly after noon Friday.

On 10/7, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) National President John Gage issued a statement in support of the protests.

On 10/23 a large group of doctors, nurses, and medical professionals turned out ot OWS.  Laurie Wen, executive director of the local chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program, said they’re joining the protesters because they believe the private insurance companies are making their patients sick.  “Unchecked corporate greed is making our patients sick,” she said. “Social and economic inequalities are making our patients sick. And doctors and nurses are tired of practicing in a system that is so broken.”

PUBLIC OPINION

David Weigel of Slate reports that Rasmussen has done the first poll of the American public’s response to the Occupy Wall Street movement, and found that the movement is starting out with favorable ratings.  Initially, the American public rates OWS more favorably than they rate the U.S. Congress.

A new poll from ORC International taken on 10/28-31 shows that public opinion is increasingly favorable.  The gains are small, but important.  64% of people have now heard of the movement compared to 51% in early October.  36% now say they agree with OWS compared to 27% earlier.

ABOUT THE DEMAND FOR DEMANDS

The movement continues to grow and to spread across the country, and Wednesday 10/5 will be a big day with many marches and demonstrations planned.  The media is beginning to take notice.  One of the most commonly heard complaints has been that there has not been a clear statement of demands and goals from the organizers.  This is simply a distraction.  This section is now a separate article titled The OWS demands are clear.

FIRST OFFICIAL STATEMENT OF OWS

The first official statement has now been released as of 10/4:

Declaration of the Occupation of New York City

As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.

They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.

They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.

They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.

They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless nonhuman animals, and actively hide these practices.

They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.

They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.

They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.

They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.

They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.

They have sold our privacy as a commodity.

They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.

They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.

They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.

They have donated large sums of money to politicians supposed to be regulating them.

They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.

They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantive profit.

They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.

They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.

They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.

They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad.

They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.

They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.*

To the people of the world,

We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.

Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.

To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.

Join us and make your voices heard!  *These grievances are not all-inclusive.

STATEMENTS BY LOCAL GROUPS

Occupy Boston MA ratified and issued a Memorandum of Solidarity with Indigenous Peoples

Occupy Iowa City IA expressed solidarity with the OWS statement.

Occupy Huntington WV also expressed support for OWS and added this list of demands

— We demand real hope, real change and something we can really believe in.
— We demand an end to monopolistic capitalism.
— We demand that JP Morgan Chase Bank phase out all funding for industries that pollute and destroy our environment. The people of Appalachia want clean energy jobs.
— We demand the creation of a clean and sustainable economy and the halt of the destruction of the environment of Appalachia and elsewhere.
— We demand recognition of climate change as fact. We demand the end of corporate ownership of mineral rights. We demand the city of Huntington stop the lay-off of workers.
— We demand the complete funding of pensions of all city employees and the recognition of a union’s right to collective bargaining.
— We demand an end to poverty and the establishment of a living wage.

Gadi Dechter wrote about what he sees as the key issues raised by the Occupy Together movement to date.  They include:  Rising income inequality, Shrinking income mobility, A rigged tax code, A rigged democracy, An assault on fundamental protections. 

PLEDGE TAKEN BY D.C. PROTESTORS

On October 6th the protests moved into Washington D.C., and the protestors have taken the following pledge announcing the reasons for the movement:

“I pledge that if any U.S. troops, contractors, or mercenaries remain in Afghanistan on Thursday, October 6, 2011, as that criminal occupation goes into its 11th year, I will commit to being in Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C., with others on that day with the intention of making it our Tahrir Square, Cairo, our Madison, Wisconsin, where we will NONVIOLENTLY resist the corporate machine to demand that our resources are invested in human needs and environmental protection instead of war and exploitation. We can do this together. We will be the beginning.”

If you want to sign this pledge, you can do so HERE.

THE MOVEMENT BECOMING AN UMBRELLA FOR MANY ECONOMIC & SOCIAL JUSTICE CAUSES

Community groups like Make the Road New York, the Coalition for the Homeless, the Alliance for Quality Education and Community Voices Heard are also organizing for Wednesday’s action, and the labor/community coalitions United New York and Strong Economy For All are pitching in as well.

As Barbara Ehrenreich notes, the OWS protestors are shining a light on the ongoing problem of homelessness:  What the Occupy Wall Streeters are beginning to discover, and homeless people have known all along, is that most ordinary, biologically necessary activities are illegal when performed in American streets - not just peeing, but sitting, lying down, and sleeping. While the laws vary from city to city, one of the harshest is in Sarasota, Florida, which passed an ordinance in 2005 that makes it illegal to “engage in digging or earth-breaking activities” - that is, to build a latrine - cook, make a fire, or be asleep and “when awakened state that he or she has no other place to live.”  It is illegal, in other words, to be homeless or live outdoors for any other reason. It should be noted, though, that there are no laws requiring cities to provide food, shelter, or restrooms for their indigent citizens.

As Mark Engler points out, as of 10/6:

As the movement spreads nationwide, #OccupyWallStreet is becoming a unifying umbrella under which people outraged about corporate greed can get involved in supporting any number of ongoing efforts to create living-wage jobs, end foreclosures and predatory lending practices, hold banks accountable, get corporate money out of politics, and otherwise promote economic justice and genuine democracy. Much as the Tea Party has served as an overarching brand for conservative discontent, #OccupyWallStreet is giving people the opportunity to identify with a national struggle while advancing causes relevant to their local communities.

In Boston, community groups doing anti-foreclosure actions at Bank of America were able to merge their efforts with #OccupyBoston demands. Likewise, #OccupyLA joined with the United Teachers of Los Angeles in a bank protest during one of its first days in existence. Organizers who have been working on anti-corporate campaigns for months or years now are starting to benefit from the new energy—and new media attention—afforded by a movement that is now seen as a national phenomenon. #OccupyWallStreet, in turn, benefits whenever greater numbers of local drives identify with their overarching effort, when their coalition is broadened, and their credibility as a national force is reinforced by the local buy-in.

The potential for expanding this type of solidarity is great, and it is likely that more groups will be linking up their campaigns in the days and weeks to come. Fortunately, #OccupyWallStreet, which has already made some remarkable strides, is evolving still.

On 10/9, Occupy Boston ratified a Memorandum of Solidarity with Indigenous Peoples

Stop the Machine (an anti-war group) has been participating with Occupy Together in marches, but the two remain separate entities.

The U.S. Food Movement has made its presence felt in Occupy Wall Street. Voices from food justice organizations across the country are connecting the dots between hunger, diet-related diseases and the unchecked power of Wall Street investors and corporations

Credit unions are seeing a surge in new accounts as many people move their money from big banks.

Some Encouraging Signs That OWS Protestors Are Being Heard

This section has been moved to a separate article [/url=http://theamericanmuslim.org/tam.php/features/articles/some-encouraging-signs-that-ows-protestors-are-being-heard/0018842]here[/url].  It is encouraging that already, some of the issues being raised by OWS are being considered by our elected representatives.  There is a long way to go, but each small gain is important.

RESPONSE OF OUR ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES

All of these responses both in support of the movement and in opposition have been moved to a separate article Our Elected Representatives Need to Respond to Clear OWS Demands

ENDORSEMENTS OF THE MOVEMENT

By Business Leaders

On 10/5 Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve Chairman, said about Occupy Wall Street: ‘I Can’t Blame Them’.  New York Magazine quotes him as saying “I would just say very generally, I think people are quite unhappy with the state of the economy and what’s happening,” Bernanke said. “They blame, with some justification, the problems in the financial sector for getting us into this mess, and they’re dissatisfied with the policy response here in Washington. And at some level, I can’t blame them.” 

Warren Buffett sided with the protestors. While many of the demonstrators seemed ill-informed, he said, the “feeling is real and there is enough basis in that feeling that we want to get rid of that basis,” which he described as unfair taxes and lack of jobs.

Dallas Federal Reserve President Richard Fisher surprised a business group in Fort Worth, Texas, on Thursday when he said, “I am somewhat sympathetic — that will shock you.”

The head of General Electric Co finance arm, Michael Neal, said he was sympathetic to the cause.  “People are really angry, and I get it. If I were unemployed now, I’d be really angry too.”

Ben & Jerry’s Board of Directors issued a statement in Support of Occupy Wall Street

By Others

Noam Chomsky said Anyone with eyes open knows that the gangsterism of Wall Street—financial institutions generally—has caused severe damage to the people of the United States (and the world). And should also know that it has been doing so increasingly for over 30 years, as their power in the economy has radically increased, and with it their political power. That has set in motion a vicious cycle that has concentrated immense wealth, and with it political power, in a tiny sector of the population, a fraction of 1%, while the rest increasingly become what is sometimes called “a precariat”—seeking to survive in a precarious existence. They also carry out these ugly activities with almost complete impunity—not only too big to fail, but also “too big to jail.”  The courageous and honorable protests underway in Wall Street should serve to bring this calamity to public attention, and to lead to dedica