bjbjLULU JUDY WOODRUFF: A growing protest
movement in the U.S. vowed today to turn up
the heat on Wall Street and against other
political and corporate forces that they say
are fueling inequality.
The demonstrations came to a boil over the
weekend.
The chants of protesters echoed off Brooklyn
Bridge on Saturday in this video taken by
New York City police, as members of a group
calling itself Occupy Wall Street tried to
march across the span.
Officers shouted warnings with bullhorns.
MAN: If you refuse to leave this roadway,
I am ordering your arrest for disorderly conduct.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Things escalated when some
of the marchers crossed into the roadway.
And 700 were arrested for obstructing traffic.
Protester video posted to YouTube showed police
securing the hands of some with plastic ties
and escorting them away.
WOMAN: Not once.
I was never told that if I walked the roadway
that I would be arrested.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Most of those detained had
been released by Sunday morning.
The previous weekend, police arrested about
100 people in a smaller standoff.
But Sunday's arrests fueled the anger of those
camped in Manhattan's Zuccotti Park, a site
they have dubbed Liberty Square.
They say they are there to protest what they
see as Wall Street greed, social inequality
and a government more responsive to corporate
interests than to ordinary Americans.
MAN: I don't care if you're rich or poor,
black or white, where you live.
Everyone has got a financial inequity system
oppressing them.
JUDY WOODRUFF: The Demonstrations began just
two weeks ago with just a few dozen people
and no central organizer.
But they have grown, largely on social media
websites, sometimes drawing in the thousands.
Now the protests have their own newspaper
and celebrity supporters.
Similar protests are spreading in other cities.
In Los Angeles, hundreds marched on City Hall
yesterday.
Some set up camp in a park across the street.
MAN: Once this -- the call for revolutionizing
comes, everyone should answer it.
JUDY WOODRUFF: They were joined by protesters
in Durham, N.C.
MAN: Banks are set up to punish the poor and
reward the rich.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And there were similar gatherings
in Seattle and in Denver.
Back in New York, the Occupy Wall Street movement
hopes to gain even more momentum with a labor
union rally planned on Wednesday.
For more on the protests and the people behind
them, we turn to two journalists who have
been covering this story.
Arun Venugopal is a reporter with WNYC Public
Radio.
And Julie Shapiro is a reporter/producer with
DNAinfo.com.
That's a website that closely covers local
news in New York.
And we thank you both for being with us.
Arun, to you first.
You have been out there among the protesters
for several days.
Who are they?
ARUN VENUGOPAL, WNYC: Well, it's a motley
group of mostly young people who have come
from all over the country.
They have been joined by people who are not
so young who have also joined them from -- either
from New York City.
I have met people from Los Angeles, from Boston.
They're joined -- I guess what they share
is sort of a sense of disenfranchisement,
a sense that their voices, what they call
the voices of the 99 percent are being muted,
being canceled out by the power of structure,
I guess, of people -- the 1 percent, as they
call them.
They feel like corporate interests really
take precedence over the voices of the masses.
And they're trying to change that.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Julie Shapiro, you also have
been out among the protesters.
How would you describe who they are.
Tell us about some of the people you have
talked to.
JULIE SHAPIRO, DNAinfo.com: Sure.
I have seen a huge variety of people.
You have people who are squatting in apartments
in Brooklyn who have lost their jobs and in
danger of being evicted.
You have college students from Pennsylvania
who are concerned about the war in Iraq and
the -- America's dependence on oil.
So you have a huge range from one end of the
spectrum to the other.
But what they really share is a sense that
the political system is not serving their
needs.
And they're trying to create a new way of
being heard that isn't through the existing
political system.
JUDY WOODRUFF: So, Arun, what exactly are
they asking for?
Have they made a list of demands?
ARUN VENUGOPAL: No.
They have been criticized for not having made
this list of demands.
And I guess they come off as somewhat vague
to people who have been following this movement.
But they, I think, have been avoiding that
for a reason.
For one, they, I think, are just trying to
channel this general sense of frustration,
and to some extent I think it has been successful
because the moment that they do, I guess,
crystallize this into something specific,
they could clearly turn off some people, even
if they might gain some people.
Right now, they said they have been avoiding
creating something like a policy arm and that
might actually bring these down into a specific
list of demands.
But, again, they come back to certain things
that they think are wrong with this country,
the control that they say corporate America
has over the political process, things like
environmental damage to the country.
They want more rights for workers for the
labor movement.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And back to you, Julie.
What do you hear from them?
Do you get a sense of a consistent message?
JULIE SHAPIRO: I think that the most consistent
message is just they're not being heard through
the current channels and that they feel that
the wealth of the country is not being distributed
equitably.
And they're trying to change that in a dramatic
way.
But, like Arun said, there are so many different
factions there and people who want so many
different things that if they were to really
break down a granular platform, I think it
would be easy to disenfranchise some people
and they're really trying to avoid that and
to be welcoming and to say that this 99 percent,
as they call themselves, they're here for
all of them.
JUDY WOODRUFF: What about choosing a leader,
Arun?
What I have been reading and hearing today
is that they seem to be well-organized, but,
as one of you has just said, they don't seem
to want to anoint someone as their public,
at least, acknowledged leader.
ARUN VENUGOPAL: Right.
For them, this is really about a process of
trying to be inclusive, as Julie said.
They are very clear that they do not want
to anoint a leader, for several reasons.
One, they think that that would create a hierarchy
that would be antithetical to what they stand
for, which is this inclusiveness.
Second, they feel that if there are people
who become sort of the -- I guess the go-to
people, the leaders of this movement, they
feel that could easily be, I guess, brought
by the police, targeted by various interests,
or, for instance, they could be bought off
by various interests.
And they're trying to avoid all these things.
In some senses, as you said, it is organized.
At other times, though as a journalist trying
to understand what it is all about, it can
be a little difficult because you have different
people to go to, and you hear different things.
It can be a little chaotic.
And they're trying to make it a little easier
on themselves as well as for others, people
who are observing this, to understand exactly
where they're going with all of this.
JUDY WOODRUFF: Julie, what about -- when you
talk to them, do you get a sense of where
they want to take this movement?
Is it just out in the streets expressing their
anger and frustration?
What's your sense of that?
JULIE SHAPIRO: Sure.
As -- every time I have asked someone how
long they're going to be in Zuccotti Park,
they say as long as it takes.
So I think that they're there for the long
haul.
They don't have a specific endgame, a goal
of, if X happens, then we will all go home.
I think they're trying to transform the political
system of the country, which they recognize
is going to take time, and that it serves
them to be there and to be gaining attention
and to have more people be aware of their
goals.
And so they're really achieving their goals
every day that they're there.
JUDY WOODRUFF: And, Arun, how are they communicating
with each other and with the news media?
And do you have a sense of how the word is
spreading to different cities?
I mean, we are seeing something like 12, 15
different cities expecting big gatherings
this week, the one in New York on Wednesday
with labor unions.
And we're expecting something in Washington
later this week.
ARUN VENUGOPAL: That's right.
JUDY WOODRUFF: What are you hearing?
ARUN VENUGOPAL: Well, yes, there is -- I think
this is where a lot of the momentum is going,
is in the creation of all these different
occupations across the country.
And, for them, the people of New York, I think
it is very exciting to see that happen.
This has been sort of a ramshackle process
for the people in New York.
Many of them are very young.
And one thing you take away from speaking
to them is that the people in some of the
other cities such as Washington, D.C., they're
actually much more sophisticated at organizing.
They have been doing this for a year, some
of them, the organizers there.
They have raised a lot more money than the
people in New York had and I think they're
much deeper in the activist process.
And they have a lot of years of experience
on them.
I think where this is heading is, as you said,
there is this big march on Wednesday.
What some of the people in New York say is
that they -- they're hoping that there will
be this leap that takes place in the next
couple weeks, where the general public and,
I think, traditional activists start seeing
this as a movement that is integrated between
the people occupying Wall Street and progressive
causes, unions and community groups.
And they're going to start pushing a little
harder on certain traditional progressive
causes, things like maybe higher taxes, strength
in terms of collective bargaining rights and
other issues like that.
JUDY WOODRUFF: All right.
Well, we are going to leave it there.
Arun Venugopal and Julie Shapiro, we thank
you both.
ARUN VENUGOPAL: Thank you.
JULIE SHAPIRO: Thank you.
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