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Facing Eviction, Protesters Begin Park Cleanup
Anemona Hartocollis, New York Times
Young people in knit hats and jeans scurried around Thursday wielding brooms and trash bags, moving mountains of sleeping bags, backpacks and jackets out of the way.
By cleaning up Zuccotti Park on their own, they were trying to persuade the park’s owner, Brookfield Properties, to back down from its plan to send in cleanup crews Friday morning and begin to enforce new rules on the use of the park that would end the Occupy Wall Street protest, at least in its current form.
But as the day wore on, it seemed that the protesters’ efforts to placate Brookfield might, in the end, not matter, and all sides were girding for a Friday showdown. The police said they were ready to step in if the company asked for help in removing protesters or enforcing the new rules, while protesters planned to form a human chain around the park and, using Facebook and Twitter, called on sympathizers to join them.
Some protesters saw the cleanup as tantamount to an eviction notice, and they vowed to stand their ground, even if it meant being arrested.
(13 October 2011)
Occupy Wall Street: More popular than you think
Brian Montopoli, CBS News
The conservative criticism of the Occupy Wall Street movement is that it is a “growing mob” (House majority leader Eric Cantor) of “shiftless protestors” (The Tea Party Express) engaged in “class warfare” (GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain) whose grievances – whatever they are – are far outside the political mainstream.
The polls don’t back that up.
A new survey out from Time Magazine found that 54 percent of Americans have a favorable impression of the protests, while just 23 percent have a negative impression. An NBC/Wall Street Journal survey, meanwhile, found that 37 percent of respondents “tend to support” the movement, while only 18 percent “tend to oppose” it.
The findings suggest that the right’s portrait of the movement as a collection of lazy hippies who need to stop whining – to “take a shower and get a job” (Bill O’Reilly) – isn’t resonating with most Americans.
That’s because while the protesters’ aims are vague – Bill Clinton said Wednesday that they need to start advocating specific political goals – their frustrations are easily identifiable and widely shared
(13 October 2011)
Occupy Wall Street protests reveal liberal tensions
Peter Wallsten, Washington Post
The Occupy Wall Street protests spreading across the country are mobilizing liberal activists who have been largely sidelined in the national debate since helping to elect President Obama three years ago.
This should be a relief to the White House, which is eager to excite a Democratic base that has grown disappointed in the president and less excited about reelecting him.
But it is unclear whether this sudden burst of energy on the American left will help Obama and other Democrats. The protests are gaining steam around a set of economic grievances and a wariness of both parties’ reliance on corporate campaign money — and Democratic officials are wondering how, or whether, they can tap into a movement that seems fed up with all brands of partisan politics.
(13 October 2011)
Lech Walesa, former Nobel Prize winning and Polish president, warns of ‘revolt against capitalism’
Corky Siemaszko, New York Daily News
Solidarity hero Lech Walesa warned Tuesday of a “worldwide revolt against capitalism” if the Occupy Wall Street protesters are ignored.
“The demonstrations in New York are against this system,” said Walesa, a former shipyard worker who led Poland’s successful revolt against Soviet communism.
They are protesting the “unfairness” of an economy that enriches a few and “throws the people to the curb,” Walesa told Polish television.
… The Nobel Peace Prize winner’s pronouncement came in response to an invitation from a protest organizer, Matthew Blair, to “stand” with them.
(11 October 2011)
Mr. Walesa goes to Wall Street
Gazeta Trojmiasto (Polish)
Lech Walesa jumped a fence on Wall Street
Lech Walesa on will go to support the Americans Wall Street protesting against political corruption and greedy banks.
“Walesa and “Solidarity” are a great inspiration,” demonstrators write to Walesa.
For more than three weeks, thousands of Americans, mostly students, have occupied New York’s Zuccotti Park near Wall Street. They are protesting against the connections between politics and finance, which cause the rich in America to get richer and the poor to get poorer. The protest, which began with a small event under the slogan “Occupy Wall Street,” has spread to dozens of cities across America. Occupations are taking place in Washington, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Boston.
With the protesters from the beginning was Michael Moore, a famous film director and social activist. Every day other celebrities add their support, including Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz, co-market reforms in Poland, Jeffrey Sachs, leftist activist Naomi Klein and free culture guru Lawrence Lessig.
A few days ago a letter from the protesters on Wall Street reached Walesa. The demonstrators were asking for support – or even a personal letter.
The letter reads: “On behalf of thousands of people protesting” Occupy Wall Street’s “turn to the Lord for solidarity with the nationwide movement of students and working people of different walks of life, with various trade unions, including the famous Lord AFL-CIO headquarters, in order to renewal and restore America’s moral purity economics. »Occupy Wall Street” is a movement of opposition leaders who do not have people of different races, gender and political views. The only thing we have in common is the belief that 99 per cent of people can no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of one percent. (…) The belief of many ordinary people need to end corruption and concern for social justice is a password and objectives sounding familiar to you. Mr. and ordinary workers $ 10 million of “Solidarity” in Poland zburzyli?cie barriers and walls of the contemporary world, and you demonstrate that the impossible can become possible. Mr. and “Solidarity” are a great inspiration. We are also going to talk until the impossible becomes possible, if we are honest in this. “
When asked by us yesterday, Walesa said: “I want to go there. I just have to find a time when I am free, because I have other commitments. Probably within a month. There appears much I wanted to join me, President Obama. Nobel undertakes. [no idea what this last bit means]
Walesa has long criticized the current capitalist system in his speeches.
“This system, on this issue must fail,” said the former president. “Capitalists seized for themselves for a large up money [??]. Powk?adali them on account abroad [??], instead of investing in new jobs. We allowed them to do it, and that was the money earned by all of us. Therefore, if we do not do something soon, the working masses will not put up with it, they will demand justice, and can lead to anarchy.
(12 October 2011)
This article is a slightly cleaned up translation from the Polish by Google Translate. Despite the rough spots, I hope readers will get the gist of it.
Lech Walesa, of course, is the Polish electrician who helped found Solidarity, which confronted the Communist regime and ultimately led to Poland’s departure from the Soviet bloc. In 1990 he served as the President of Poland. (Wikipedia).
Suggested by EB contributor Marcin Gerwin.
