In the fifth week, the “Occupy Wall Street” movement shows no signs of stopping but rather signs of expanding.
The movement was started when a Canadian group called “Adbusters” produced a poster that urged people to demonstrate on Wall Street on Sept. 17. On that day, a handful of demonstrators began to protest outside of the New York Stock Exchange.
After a few weeks, more and more demonstrators have shown up. As of early October, 15,000 protestors marched in lower Manhattan alone.
While the movement does not have a set agenda or a designated leader, the group does have common ideas. In September, a document was put up by protestors on the internet called The Declaration of the Occupation of New York City, which cited such grievances as corporations using an “illegal foreclosure process” to take houses as well as taking “bailouts from taxpayers with impunity” while paying “exorbitant” executive bonuses and holding “students hostage” with education debt, amongst other offenses.
The movement has become so popular with people that it has spread to dozens of U.S. cities such as San Francisco, St. Louis, and Atlanta as well as foreign cities such as London, U.K.
“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 movement has gained much support, from celebrities such as Susan Sarandon and Kanye West to financier George Soros to prominent members of the Democratic Party.
Former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi gave her support, saying, “I support the message to the establishment, whether it’s Wall Street or the political establishment and the rest, that change has to happen. We cannot continue in a way that does not — that is not relevant to their lives. People are angry.”
President Barack Obama even expressed his support for the movement.
“It expresses the frustrations that the American people feel that we had the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression, huge collateral damage all throughout the country, all across Main Street,” the president said. “And yet you’re still seeing some of the same folks who acted irresponsibly trying to fight efforts to crack down on abusive practices that got us into this problem in the first place.”
Republicans have been less supportive of the movement.
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor has expressed he is “increasingly concerned about the growing mobs occupying Wall Street and the other cities across the country.”
The biggest opponent of the protests, presidential candidate Herman Cain, said “Don’t blame Wall Street, don’t blame the big banks, if you don’t have a job and you’re not rich, blame yourself!”
