"Occupy Wall Street: NYPD Arrests 700 Protesters On Brooklyn Bridge"

"Occupy Wall Street:

NYPD Arrests 700 Protesters On Brooklyn Bridge"
by The Huffington Post

"Hundreds of people protesting Wall Street abuses were penned in and arrested by police Saturday, two weeks into an ongoing demonstration that has become known on Twitter as #OccupyWallStreet: https://twitter.com/#!/search/%23occupywallstreet

Centered at Zuccotti Park since September 17, the gathering that began as a call to arms from anti-consumerist magazine AdBusters has shown no sign of a slowdown. The movement aims to "express a feeling of mass injustice," according to the group’s declaration for the occupation of New York City released Friday. The injustices include the foreclosure crisis, work place discrimination and student loan debt, among a list of others. As HuffPost reported recently, the movement is less about specific policy demands and more about an expression of opposition to ever yawning economic inequality driven by Wall Street and its allies in Washington. Calling themselves an American revolution, the protesters say they plan to stay in the park indefinitely.

Greg Basta, an official with New York Communities for Change, said that the organizers were encouraged by police on Saturday to march on the street area of the Brooklyn Bridge, instead of the walkway, then subsequently arrested them for marching in traffic. Two lead organizers, Jonathan Westin and Pete Nagy, were penned in by police. Westin managed to exit the police pen, but Nagy is missing and presumed detained by police, Basta told HuffPost. "Police say some demonstrators spilled onto the roadway Saturday night after being told to stay on the pedestrian pathway," the Associated Press reported. Similar demonstrations started Saturday in Washington and Los Angeles. Shon Botado, a protester staffing a first aid station in New York, told The Huffington Post on Friday that he’s not leaving “until change is made to the financial structure.”

- http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

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Statement From The AFL-CIO Next Up Young Worker Summit

Attendees of the AFL-CIO Next Up Young Worker Summit, currently meeting in Minneapolis, Minnesota, released this official statement in solidarity with the Opposition Wall Street protests:
 

"The world in which we live isn’t working for the vast majority of people. The top 1 percent controls the economy, makes profits at the expense of working people, and dominates the political debate. Wall Street symbolizes this simple truth: a small group of people have the lives and livelihoods of working Americans in their hands.
 

In the last two weeks, young people have sparked a movement on Wall Street, just as they did through the Arab Spring and in Wisconsin against Scott Walker. Participants at the AFL-CIO Next Up Young Worker Summit left Occupy Wall Street to join with young people in the labor movement to talk about how best to take back our economy for the middle class.
 

Today, more than 800 Next Up participants from around the country stand with those on Wall Street who are making their voices heard. The future of our country depends on young people demanding the future we believe in. And we believe that Wall Street should pay for the damage they’ve done to our economy, our jobs, and our communities – foreclosing on homes, making massive profits with no oversight, and not sharing in building a future for the next generation.
 

We stand together in calling for a country that doesn’t just work for the top 1 percent. We stand together to call for a sustainable future that doesn’t begin with massive tax breaks for the wealthy and end with austerity measures and a jobs crisis."

    "We are one."

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And we are many, and they are few, so very few... - CP

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