Tag: occupy wall street

A former Marine who served two tours of duty in Iraq was seriously injured in Tuesday night’s police crackdown on Occupy Wall Street protesters in Oakland, Calif.

DENVER-- As anticipated, President Obama this morning detailed his plan to use an executive order to ease the burden of student loan debt that presently presses down on tens of millions of Americans. Speaking in shirt sleeves and drawing on his own struggles with student debt as a young man, husband and father, Obama told the energized crowd in an event center hall on the downtown university Auraria Campus that he was determined for the foreseeable future to act wherever possible to relieve economic distress in the country without going through the gridlocked Congress.

In a speech Thursday at the Commonwealth Club of California, U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann batted down suggestions of student loan and debt forgiveness that have come out of the Occupy Wall Street movement, saying the movement isn’t offering permanent solutions.

A majority of Americans — and almost a third of Republicans — agree with the aims of the Occupy Wall St. movement, according to polls taken over the last ten days.

Alex Altman of TIME’s Swampland blog writes:

Everybody has an opinion about Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Denver and the Occupy movement as a whole. And while well over half of all Americans approve of the multi-city protest, it certainly has it detractors as well.

Occupy Wall Street and its many offshoots including Occupy Denver have gone beyond the curiosity stage. They've spawned similar demonstrations and occupations all over the world. They've become a subject for discussion, from current events classes in high schools to Tuesday evening's GOP presidential debate.

It's a tactic that puts supporters of Occupy Wall Street beyond the reach of pepper spray, and it spreads far and wide in a public and private way the message of crippling financial disparity that's at the heart of the movement. It's a literal take on the medium being the message. A project called Occupy George is turning your dollar bills into informational protest placards.

First came the broke unemployed drummers and poets, then the debt-ridden students, then the retired couples whose pensions and real estate holdings have withered, then the tourists, then, slowly, the journalists. on Friday, the Occupy Wall Street movement, which has been thrumming along gathering force and supporters across the country and around the world for more than a month now, won a reluctant endorsement from a chief critic, Tea Party blog king Erick Erickson at Red State.

It is rare that this many politicians agree on anything, but in Colorado most seem to agree that it is wiser not to comment on Occupy Wall Street/Occupy Denver.

It was a modest start, but a start nonetheless for disaffected worker bees representing the 99 percent toiling in the 1-percent playground of the rich and famous in Aspen on Monday.