Wall Street Blocked As Demonstrators #OccupyWallSt

By: EW News Desk Team   Date: 19 September 2011

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19 September 2011

New York City police may continue to restrict access to Wall Street for a third consecutive day, requiring workers and residents to present their identification after protestors staged a peaceful weekend demonstration at New York's financial district. 

Taking their cue from previously successful social media campaigns such as the "Arab Spring", organizers of Occupy Wall Street are hoping that their efforts to galvanize tens of thousands of Americans to hold a nonviolent sit-in would eventually persuade U.S. President Barack Obama to establish a commission that would end the "influence that money has over representatives in Washington."

"I don't think that anybody can look at the political and economic landscape we have now in Washington and not come to the conclusion that the system is not broken," Bill Csapo, a volunteer for the event told CBS. "We need to get the government back into hands of the 99 percent, not the one percent. Right now, the law is written for the one percent, and we are seeing an incredible amount of wealth being extracted," Csapo said.

On Saturday, close to 1000 gathered around Wall Street, with several protesters putting up signs reading "capitalism doesn't work" and "end corporate welfare."

"There is a very visceral anger against the financial community. Many people feel that these people who are financial fraudsters, who basically got away with it, have yet to be brought to justice ... It seems like 'We the People' now have to congregate on Wall Street and other financial districts around the world, and force the global economic system to move in a better, more just direction," Kalle Lasn, co-founder of popular counterculture magazine AdBusters, to CNN. 

New York City Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, said at a September 15 press conference that "people have a right to protest, and if they want to protest, we'll be happy to make sure they have locations to do it."

"As long as they do it where other people's rights are respected, this is the place where people can speak their minds, and that's what makes New York, New York." Mr. Bloomberg said.

Well known hacktivist group "Anonymous" also lent their support to the September 17 protest, calling on its supporters to join in the sit-in.

According to a National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center bulletin obtained by Bloomberg Businessweek, more protests are planned in financial districts across Madrid, Milan, London and Paris. 


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