10/3/11
NEW YORK (AP)
— Protests against Wall
Street spread across the country Monday as demonstrators marched on Federal Reserve banks and camped out in parks from
Los
Angeles to Portland, Maine, in a show of anger over the wobbly
economy and what they see as corporate greed.
In Manhattan, hundreds of protesters
dressed as corporate zombies in white face paint lurched past the New York Stock
Exchange clutching fistfuls of fake money. In Chicago, demonstrators pounded drums
in the city's financial
district. Others pitched tents or waved protest signs at passing cars in
Boston, St. Louis and Kansas City, Mo.
The arrests of 700 protesters on the Brooklyn Bridge over the weekend galvanized a slice of
discontented America, from college students worried about their job prospects to
middle-age workers who have been recently laid off.
Some protesters likened themselves to the tea party movement —
but with a liberal bent  ” or to the Arab Spring demonstrators who brought
down their rulers in the Middle
East.
"I've felt this
way for a long time. I've really just kind of been waiting for a movement to
come along that I thought would last and have some resonation within the
community," said Steven Harris, a laid-off truck driver in Kansas
City.
Harris and about 20 other people were camped out in a park
across the street from the Kansas
City Federal Reserve building, their site strewn with sleeping bags,
clothes and handmade signs. Some passing drivers honked in support.
The Occupy Wall Street protests started on Sept. 17 with a few dozen
demonstrators who tried to pitch tents in front of the New York Stock Exchange. Since then, hundreds have set
up camp in a park nearby and have become increasingly organized, lining up
medical aid and legal help and printing their own newspaper, the Occupied Wall Street Journal.
About 100 demonstrators were arrested on Sept. 24 and some were
pepper-sprayed. On Saturday
police arrested 700 on charges of disorderly conduct and blocking a public
street as they tried to march over the Brooklyn Bridge. Police said they took
five more protesters into custody on
Monday, though it was unclear whether they had been charged with any
crime.
Wiljago Cook, of Oakland, Calif., who joined the New York
protest on the first day, said she was shocked by the arrests.
"Exposing police brutality wasn't even really on my agenda,
but my eyes have been opened," she said. She vowed to stay in New York "as long
as it seems useful."
City bus drivers sued the New York Police Department on Monday
for commandeering their buses and making them drive to the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday to pick up detained
protesters.
"We're down with these protesters. We support the notion that
rich folk are not paying their fair share," said Transport Workers Union
President John Samuelsen. "Our bus operators are not going to be pressed into
service to arrest protesters anywhere."
The city's Law Department said the NYPD's actions were
proper.
On Monday, the zombies stayed on the sidewalks as they wound
through Manhattan's financial district chanting, "How to fix the deficit: End
the war, tax the rich!" They lurched along with their arms in front of them.
Some yelled, "I smell money!"
Reaction was mixed from passers-by.
Roland Klingman, who works in the financial industry and was
wearing a suit as he walked through a raucous crowd of protesters, said he could
sympathize with the anti-Wall Street message.
"I don't think it's directed personally at everyone who works
down here," Klingman said. "If they believe everyone down here contributes to
policy decisions, it's a serious misunderstanding."
Another man in a suit yelled at the protesters, "Go back to
work!" He declined to be interviewed.
Mayor Michael
Bloomberg, a billionaire who made his fortune as a corporate executive, has said
the demonstrators are making a mistake by targeting Wall Street.
"The protesters are protesting against people who make $40- or
$50,000 a year and are struggling to make ends meet. That's the bottom line.
Those are the people who work on Wall Street or in the finance sector,"
Bloomberg said in a radio interview Friday.
Some protesters planned to travel to other cities to organize
similar events.
John Hildebrand, a protester in New York from Norman, Okla.,
hoped to mount a protest there after returning home Tuesday. Julie Levine, a
protester in Los Angeles, planned to go to Washington on
Thursday.
Websites and
Facebook pages with names like Occupy Boston and Occupy Philadelphia have also sprung up to plan the
demonstrations.
Hundreds of demonstrators marched from a tent city on a grassy plot in
downtown Boston to the Statehouse to call for an end of corporate influence of
government.
"Our beautiful system of American checks and balances has been
thoroughly trashed by the influence of banks and big finance that have made it
impossible for the people to speak," said protester Marisa Engerstrom, of
Somerville, Mass., a Harvard
doctoral student.
The Boston demonstrators decorated their tents with
hand-written signs reading, "Fight the rich, not their wars" and "Human need,
not corporate greed."
Some stood on the
sidewalk holding up signs, engaging in debate with passers-by and waving at
honking cars. One man yelled "Go home!" from his truck. Another man made an
obscene gesture.
"We lean left,
but there have been tea party people stopping by here who have said, 'Hey, we
like what you're doing,'" said Jason Potteiger, a media coordinator for the
Boston protesters.
In Chicago, protesters beat drums on the corner near the
Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. In Los Angeles, demonstrators hoping to get TV
coverage gathered in front of the courthouse where Michael Jackson's doctor is
on trial on manslaughter charges.
Protesters in St.
Louis stood on a street corner a few blocks from the shimmering Gateway Arch, carrying signs that
read, "How Did The Cat Get So Fat?," ''You're a Pawn in Their Game" and "We Want
The Sacks Of Gold Goldman Sachs Stole From Us."
"Money talks, and
it seems like money has all the power," said Apollonia Childs. "I don't want to see any homeless
people on the streets, and I don't want to see a veteran or elderly people
struggle. We all should have our fair share. We all vote, pay taxes. Tax the
rich."
Verena Dobnik, Karen
Matthews, Cristian Salazar and Jennifer Peltz in New York; Jim Suhr in St.
Louis; David Sharp in Portland,
Maine; Mark Pratt in Boston; Patrick Walters in Philadelphia; Bill Draper
in Kansas City, Mo.; Carla K. Johnson in Chicago, and Christina Hoag and Robert
Jablon in Los Angeles contributed to this report.
