We've selected some comments from Saturday's demonstration in Times Square.
Achei (African American, employed, in her 50's): “This young people who have gone to school and took a loan they can't pay back because they don't have any jobs to pay back. People who bought their homes are getting foreclosed, they're getting thrown out of their houses.”
Gerry Crane (American, employed, in his 60's, has helped the Green Party): “A famour author, Kurt Vonnegut, once said that in the struggle between the forces of evil and the forces of good there was only one thing that ever made a difference, and that's organizing. So I hope that as the movement grows it will attrack smart strategists that will help this with a better organizing.”
Caroline (American, retired librarian in her 60's and member of the D37 Union): “The Unions have a structure, they've been around a long time and I think just having that structure and participating in this whole event adds to.”
…And some editorials, op-eds and user comments from American media and the Net.
Nicholas Kristof's op-ed at the New York Times: “The frustration in America isn’t so much with inequality in the political and legal worlds, as it was in Arab countries, although those are concerns too. Here the critical issue is economic inequity. According to the C.I.A.’s own ranking of countries by income in
equality, the United States is more unequal a society than either Tunisia or Egypt.”
Wendy Kaminer at The Atlantic: “Do Occupy Wall Streeters have a First Amendment right to occupy public parks indefinitely, 24/7, to the exclusion of other uses? No, they do not, obviously. No one should have the right to break laws with impunity — not bankers, not police, and not protesters.”
Nan Aron (President, Alliance for Justice) at The Huffington Post: “I assume that when the Occupy Wall Street protesters visualize the people who have distorted our system to benefit corporate interests they probably don't picture Supreme Court justices. But maybe they should.”
struggleforfreedom80: “Whats radical about wanting more equality and justice? Whats radical about wanting people to be able to particiapte and to have a say in the matters that affect them? Whats radical about wanting more democracy? Lots of people have LOST their jobs because of the gangsters at Wall Street and the finacial elite.”
@tsdevi: “this movement is not about wanting, or needing what the super wealthy “have” but what they take away and do not give in return. Healthy homes, healthy environments, good jobs and good schools, access to good healthcare, retirement care…the obsession with money is not an invention of the poor, it is a gross addiction of those who need to hoard wealth…and in so doing they make it worthless.”
