(Image Source: Business Insider)
BY SHELLY YANG
Wall Street’s looking a little different this weekend. More than 2,000 protesters from all over the country gathered in lower Manhattan to join the Occupy Wall Street Movement.
“A protest on Wall Street. Police quickly set up barricades near the New York stock exchange after hearing about the protest plans on twitter. Some people called it the United States day of rage. According to organizers, the idea was to camp out for weeks, even months possibly as an expression of anger over the financial system they say favors the rich and powerful. At least two people were arrested. “
Most U.S. cable networks only briefly mentioned the event. And The Wall Street Journal had no coverage as of Sunday afternoon -- but Russian news outlet RT went in-depth. A protester told the network the group’s anger was targetted at Wall Street fat cats.
“When the top 1% of wealth of this country controls political decisions, when the money that comes straight out of banks goes to bonuses instead of taking care of the problems we need and that same money goes to pay for politicians who make those decisions, people should be damn annoyed.”
The Think Progress website concedes debates about the tactics and strategies behind an anti-Wall Street campaign might be warranted. It points out...
“While many of the conservative defenders of Wall Street may be quick to portray protests ... as driven by envy of its wealth or far-left ideologies, the truth is that people have a very simple reason to be angry — because Wall Street’s actions made tens of millions of people dramatically poorer through no fault of their own.”
The protest organizer AdBusters expects this campaign to be like the Tahrir Square moment of the Arab Spring. The site has a link to a live stream of the event on its website.
But CNN questions about the impact.
“CNN Money’s Julian Pepitone was in the middle of it today. She said it turned out felt way short of organizers’ expectations.”
“The original call back in July from Adbusters magazine was for 90,000 people to show up, and a couple of weeks ago they kind of down say that asking for 20,000 people, but they certainly didn’t get that kind of turnout today.”
But China’s Xinhua News Agency warns America that this is a warning sign.
“The U.S. economy is so depressed at the moment and the employment rate keeps plummeting. If it can’t stop, it is not impossible for America to confront large-scale social unrest.”
The protest organizers say they plan to occupy Wall Street for a couple months. But according to Bloomberg -- already -- on Day 2 -- their numbers had dwindled to a few hundred Sunday.
 |  |  |  |
