Occupy Wall Street: Big banks do nothing but big bangs
Protests in New York highlighting the plight of the US economy and slamming the corporations behind it are not going away, at least until the end of winter. As unions join in, the "Occupy Wall Street" movement seems to be gaining more support daily.
Activists of the “Occupy Los Angeles” movement are planning another Saturday march to city hall in solidarity with "Occupy Wall Street," reports Southern California Public Radio.Hundreds of protesters have been camping out in a park near the nation's financial hub, Wall Street, for two weeks. Seven days into the New York protests, similar demonstrations sparked in Los Angeles, Chicago and other locations across the US. The protesters have given very clear grounds for their “occupations”: Americans feel duped and defrauded by a system which let Wall Street greed kick off a financial meltdown and ultimately collapse the economy. With one in every six Americans now living in poverty, the demonstrators are bitter about the fact that bankers have not been held accountable for the financial crisis, and ordinary people have been left to suffer. “This could be the skeleton of a revolution, the beginning of one, possibly,” Ziya Smallens, a high school student, told RT in New York.As high-profile activists and scholars started joining in to support the crowds, it became harder for the media to ignore the demonstrations.It also became harder for most Americans to disregard the Wall Street protests when police brutality started to occur. Last weekend over 80 protesters were arrested, while several women were gathered up in a police net and maced with pepper-spray.But the protesters say they are willing to pay any price to get their voices heard.“A lot of people are talking about the one percent and a fraction of one percent that have all the money and real power. They influence a lot of decisions which do not help anyone else but them, so that is why everyone else is getting screwed, you know,” says Troy Telford, one of the protesters.As the protest gathers force and union support, many are beginning to wonder if this gathering can become reminiscent of what America saw in Wisconsin this winter. In February, up to 70,000 people stormed the Capitol building, saying their voices were being ignored.It was also union support that made as many as 250,000 people come out onto the streets in Europe. There is a real possibility that these demonstrators could stay in New York and grow in numbers until a real peaceful revolution occurs. After all, if the Arab Spring was applauded by America's powerful, why not listen to a similar cry for change at home?
